


It's Hard To Be The One Who Stays

by fightforyourwrite



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics), Teen Titans - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Future Fic, Leaving, Missing Persons, Missing in Action, Near Future, Speed Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 10:03:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14952563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fightforyourwrite/pseuds/fightforyourwrite
Summary: There comes a point in their lives where he's always leaving and she's always staying.





	It's Hard To Be The One Who Stays

There comes a point in their lives where he’s always leaving and she’s always staying. 

The Speed Force, the thing that gives him his powers, is the one thing constantly taking him away from his world. At a certain point, it becomes damn near ironic. 

It tugs at him, grasping to his body in frightful attempts to drag him away. It’s an absolute struggle to fight it off. 

Sometimes Bart doesn’t win every battle. Thus he is swept into another place, into a point that exists outside of the confines of their reality. 

So in his absence, Rose can only wait and wonder when he will come back. 

It’s hard to be the one who stays. She can carry on with her regular life, but now her days are filled with pity-filled stares and words she had heard a thousand times before. 

She’s ready to hear  _ “It’s okay, Rose,” _ or  _ “Are you doing okay?”  _ or  _ “He always comes back.”  _

Rose knows it all. There isn’t a phrase that anyone can say to her that she can’t predict the second they opened her mouth. 

Lately, Rose’s thoughts have started to drift elsewhere, on nights where she is alone and the only comfort to her is a dreamless slumber. 

Sometimes she wonders if he’s really gone this time. Sometimes she imagines what people would say, how his family would react, and then how everyone would look at her now that Bart had disappeared for real. 

She even thinks about what would happen if he knew he would be leaving for good, pondering his last words, and letting her mind swirl around phrases like  _ “I’m sorry, Rose,” _ or  _ “We needed more time,” _ or  _ “I love you.”  _

It makes Rose want to cave in. No one wants to think of the day where someone they love doesn’t come back. 

Most of the time, she releases her stress with her fists or with her swords. But there comes a point in her life where all she wants to do is talk to someone. 

However, the only person she wants to talk to is nowhere to be seen. 

It’s been weeks since his last disappearance and there is yet to be a sign of him coming back.

So for another night, inside an empty apartment made for two, Rose crawls into a queen sized bed and lies there until she drifts off into sleep. 

Hours later, Rose hears a knock on her door and it forces her awake. In her kind of life, she’s learned to expect only the strangest things to come knocking at three in the morning. 

Nonetheless, she grabs her eye patch off her bedside table and gets out of bed. 

Quietly, Rose prods across the apartment and gets to the door. She doesn’t even look through the peephole before undoing the locks and swinging the thing open.

Out in the hall stands Bart, looking ruffled and exhausted from whatever the Speed Force had put him through this time. Though battered, he looks at her with light in his eyes. The smile on his face says it all to her. 

Quickly, Bart opens his mouth, about to say his first words to her in weeks. 

But before he can say anything at all, Rose steps forward, throwing her arms around him and pulling him into her embrace. She presses her face into the crook of his neck, holding him closer and squeezing him tighter. 

He doesn’t say a word. At this point, he’s said it all –  _ “Miss me?” _ and  _ “Missed you too” _ and  _ “How long was I gone?”   _

Now Bart says nothing. Instead, he hugs her back, taking in the start of their time together before inevitably, it ends again. 


End file.
